David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Hansard source

Despite all of the allegations of spin, we have just seen more spin than a Shane Warne wrong'un. The member for Goldstein tried to spin his way out of what is a $70 billion black hole, but he will have to do better—and he will have to do better each and every day until the next election. We are going to hold him to account. He might have thought that at the last election he managed to skate through, but we all recall what happened back then. He recalls it really well. In fact, he was scarred by the experience. Most of his colleagues have made sure he was scarred by the experience. The buck-passing exercise that occurred amongst their shadow of an economic team left the blame fairly and squarely at his feet. And he is hurting—he is smarting from it.

I feel a bit sorry for him because he was not the only one to blame. We all remember the budget reply speech that did not turn out to be a budget reply speech—it was more of a flick pass out the back to the shadow Treasurer, who was then given the opportunity at the Press Club a week later to detail where all these savings would be made. He failed abysmally. We then had another flick pass, and the poor old member for Goldstein was left holding the baby. There he was, with the football in his hands, left to account for their black hole. He could not do it. We all remember the 'time to call it quits' press conference, when the press secretary started motioning, in a cutthroat fashion, to bring that painful press conference to an end. The pain and suffering of that experience is not about to come to an end. We are determined to make sure that excruciating, painful experience that the member for Goldstein endured lives on. His own conduct and the conduct of his colleagues have contributed to that. After the election, we saw in all of its ugliness the $11 billion black hole that the opposition went to the election with. It was only exposed because we had a hung parliament and the Independents, whom both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition were negotiating with, determined that it was only fair and reasonable that the costings of both parties be placed on the table and that the sunshine be shone on what was ultimately an $11 billion black hole. Those are 11 billion reasons why those opposite are on that side of the chamber. It hurts. I know it hurts. But the reason it hurts most is that you have not learnt from your mistakes. Instead of going to the next election with an $11 billion black hole, it is looking more and more like a $70 billion black hole. This is not a figure that we have plucked out of the air. It was one of a number of figures that the member for North Sydney shared with his colleagues. In fact, I think the $70 billion was the figure he told the member for Goldstein. He also told a few other colleagues a few other figures—I think 50 and 60. Who knows? There might have even be an 80 in there. Just like the documents that are circulated with little secret markings to identify who the culprit is in the event that they are leaked, the member for Goldstein was caught out in leaking the $70 billion figure, and the member for North Sydney was brought to account in an interview.

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